Is it sacrilegious to sympathize with the devil? Is it legitimate to humanize Lucifer under the pretense that he has “retired” from running hell and is now slumming with the humans as a nightclub owner in Los Angeles? Most transgressive of all, is it acceptable to present the scheming Fallen Angel as a seeker of justice and champion of personal responsibility? That’s exactly what Fox is doing with its new show Lucifer, Mondays at 9/8c.

Most importantly, THE X-FILES 2016 has seen the reestablishment of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s Mulder and Scully as one of the most iconic pairs in TV history. Other than the rather joyless opening ep, which was perhaps inevitably heavy on exposition and table setting, this has been an immensely satisfying season with a wider emotional range than we have seen before from the stars and their characters. That emotional range has been built upon a potentially very sensitive matter: their respective mid-life crises.